cooked a new recipe today.

[ianinfrance]

I think maybe our British ducks are not as plump and fatty as French ones.

That's certainly true, and it's also a fact that the best ones for "confecting" are the large ducks used for foie gras and they are a completely different variety of duck ("Moulard"), with flesh that's quite different too.

Anyway, you're most welcome.

[Herbidacious]

I just cooked Sichuan aubergines with ginger, garlic and chilli, from Thomasina Miers Chilli Notes.

It was very tasty, but not quite dinner party standard, I think. Very simple to make, but not speedy, as it required pre-salting aubergines (ok I know one doesn't have to, but I prefer the texture of salted ones) and then 30-40 minutes to roast them, as it would...! I had to buy a few non-fresh ingredients too, which is unusual for me!

[Catherine]

I just cooked Sichuan aubergines with ginger, garlic and chilli, from Thomasina Miers Chilli Notes.

It was very tasty, but not quite dinner party standard, I think. Very simple to make, but not speedy, as it required pre-salting aubergines (ok I know one doesn't have to, but I prefer the texture of salted ones) and then 30-40 minutes to roast them, as it would...! I had to buy a few non-fresh ingredients too, which is unusual for me!

Sounds delicious and not really an effort if you consider it would take the same time to cook meat. I love aubergine

[Emerald7]

New recipe tonight is counterfeit duck confit from David Lebovovitz new book.

Have you tried the mustard chicken, as per the front cover photo on My Paris Kitchen? We had it for the second time tonight, and it's definitely a favourite in this household. Simple dish, but with so much flavour. I love the book - beautifully written.

[patpoyntz]

I love the book too, and will definitely try the mustard chicken. I am glad to hear it is as good as it looks.

[Herbidacious]

True, Catherine. It was nice

[StokeySue]

On Friday in fact
Another EGOR recipe - Zahjiang (Beijing style) noodles

Very easy, very good, could be in the this and that thread, as you prepare the noodles, top them with a selection of the veg you have, then pour a (pork based) sauce over the lot

Was amused by my fresh egg noodles form Morrison's, they were very good - but they came with instructions for stir frying only, apparently no other method of preparing Chinese food being known. A little experiment showed that my s/steel strainer would fit in my medium saucepan as a pasta insert, so I blanched the noodles in that, removed them to a warmed bowl, then blanched the veg in the same hot water, easy!

I've tried freezing the excess noodles
If it works I'll make a bigger batch of the sauce and freeze some portions

[karadekoolaid]

A young friend of ours got married yesterday.
A family member said she´d give him some salmon for the wedding reception.
She did - 3 enormous fish, a total of 16kgs
He called me and asked if I could do anything with the salmon, so I got together with another cheffie friend , and we made:
1) Oriental style salmon tartare - the tenderest part of the fish, diced , then mixed with cucumber, sweet chile peppers, spring onion, green mango, ginger, green chiles, soy and sesame oil.
2) Marinated "gravadlax"-style salmon: I marinaded the fillets in Mezcal ( think Tequila with a smoky flavour), crushed coriander seeds, raw cane sugar, sea salt and freshly ground pepper
3) I poached all the bits left over, pulled off the meat,mixed it with cream cheese, capers, a little onion, dill and ground black pepper, then wrapped flaky pastry around it and made 200 tiny rolls. Baked salmon pastries.

The dog ate all the skin, so I reckon we used the fish wisely!

[ianinfrance]

We made a new soup today actually it is for Thursday lunch, but the base won't come to any harm made a couple of days in advance - and quickly cooled as usual.

It's called Creamy Smoked Salmon, Leek and Potato Soup. An unlikely sounding sort of soup. The soup base is a total doddle, especially if you have access to really good tasty floury spuds and leeks. You slice the leeks finely, sweat in a little butter with a bayleaf for abt 15 minutes till well tender. Meanwhile you measure out the liquids etc and peel (I scraped 'cos ours were home grow newies) and cube the spuds. When the leek are tender you add the spuds, cook stirring over higher heat for a couple of moments to coat with the butter. Then you add chicken stock (home made best) and cream. Bring to the boil and simmer (15 mins or) till the spuds are really tender and breaking up. Check seasoning and serve with slivered smoked salmon and chopped chives. Easy peasy. Really really good.

My variations, which I made because my spuds were not as floury as they should have been, was to cook them on a slightly higher heat stirring pretty vigorously and for longer. I then turned the lot into a large colander, and really shook the potato cubes to break them up - that didn't really work as I hoped, so I put about 1/3 of them into the liquidiser with some of the broth and whizzed till they were really smooth. Tipped back into the pan with the rest of the spuds. Because the cream had broken down a bit with the fast long cooking, I then put that into the liquidiser and whizzed that as well. Poured it back in and simmered the lot a coupe of minutes. Marvellous as it was. When serving you tip in about 2/3 of the smoked salmon strips, and stir well. Check seasoning only at this stage as smoked salmon is salty. Then dish into bowls with the rest of the smoked salmon and chives. Brilliant. I was given this by a friend about 8 months ago and have been meaning to make it ever since.

Quantities for 8

2 large leeks cleand and sliced very finely
30 g butter
1 bay leaf
1 kg potatoes peeled and cubed
1 litre chicken or veg stock
100 ml whipping or double cream
200 g smoked salmon cut in strips (we used offcuts and dried up outsides of home smoked trout)
1 small bunch chives
s&p

[Zosherooney]

[Beagle lady]

I was wondering if there was a thread for new recipes, or things cooked/made for the first time. We (OH and I joint effort!) made Basil Pesto the other day for the first time, using a recipe kindly shared with me by Suffolk on the gardening forum we're on. I made it with basil I grew and it was delicious, better left for a day or two I think and we will definitely be making it regularly now, I can't believe how easy it is to make and so much better than shop bought.

[suffolk]

Glad it turned out well BL (you don't mind if I call you BL? seems to fit )

[Beagle lady]

Not at all Suffolk, I answer to most things I'm going to try and keep the basil growing so we can make some for the Christmas 'hampers' we make for close friends, they will be well impressed as they are foodies too

[suffolk]

You'll find that I get called Suffs a lot

I think the recipe I suggested had a version where you could make it part way and freeze it at a certain point, and then finish making it later - that would work well for your Christmas hampers

[karadekoolaid]

Beagle Lady:
I also use the basil plants in my kitchen garden to make pesto. If you put it in a small jar and cover it with a layer of olive oil, it lasts for ages (and I mean, months) in the fridge.
I don´t know what Suffs uses, but I had to give up on pine nuts. Basil, olive oil, garlic, parmesan and almonds for me.

[Cinnamon Sally]

Had to search for this thread - it's been a while

Have made a few new things recently but the dish which sticks in mind was a Creole Paella from a book called Eat Cuban, which I picked up a charity shop. The dish was a sort of mixture between a classic paella and a curry. I looked at the recipe, got quite excited and went out to buy the ingredients, only then did I start thinking it through properly and doubts about combining chorizo with coconut milk started creeping in...

The recipe started off as a basic paella recipe; shallots, chorizo and garlic were combined with tomatoes, bomba rice, saffron and fish stock and the dish bulked out with mussels, prawns and squid (actually octopus in the recipe but squid was easier to find. I also committed the stated crab claws and added extra mussels). The difference in the initial cooking process was the addition of both scotch bonnet and jalapeno chillies then, as the dish simmered, a can of coconut milk and finally some stewed black beans stirred through.

I have to say, I enjoyed the dish but OH wasn't keen. Not sure I would rush to make it again as would prefer to make and eat a "proper" paella but it was quite tasty and I wouldn't write it off completely. The coconut milk did not fight with the chorizo - well, in all honesty it completely drowned it out; I'm not convinced there was any point in chorizo being in the recipe at all to be honest. Definitely an interesting experiment!

[ianinfrance]

Thanks for bumping this thread because we're doing a new one tomorrow!

[ianinfrance]

Well there we are. We did a recipe from Jamie Oliver's 5 minute meals. "Crispy Parma Pork (bla bla)"

It consisted of a bed of seasoned up reheated brown rice, topped with stir fried minted courgettes with a touch of chilli and on top of that, medaillons (weighing about 50g each) of pork tenderloin/fillet each stuffed with a nugget of feta cheese and wrapped in Parma type ham, before being fried till the ham became crispy.

We agreed that the dish was delicious, and while WE couldn't do it in 15 mins as we can't get the precooked rice, with two of us doing the prep work, Jacquie was able to finish it in around 20 minutes. I can live with that as being viable for someone in a hurry!

We could certainly evisage cooking it for friends.

[Cinnamon Sally]

Hi Ian

I "reviewed" that recipe further up this thread. It's lovely; have made it a few times now. Easily my favourite recipe from that JO book. I have to say I've never actually made it with precooked rice; mainly because I'm a bit stingy and can "precook" my own without adding more than 5 mins to the cooking time. No need to buy special rice when we always have some in.

[ianinfrance]

No need to buy special rice when we always have some in

Completely agree. I won't say it's my favourite of all the recipes we've tried, but we felt it was delicious and we'll certainly be doing it again.

[StokeySue]

I acquired a wild hen mallard (dressed) on Saturday, I've never cooked one before as far as I remember

I looked up methods of cooking, two camps, fast as possible and rather slow, some very complicated (cook, remove legs and fiddle about, cook some more - Pierre Koffman) so I went with Raymond Blanc's method

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roastwildduckwithbla_93499

Worked perfectly, except I gave it 15 minutes in the oven not 13, taking it to 72 deg C, which was perfect for me, though probably slightly less rare than he intended

I made a version of the blackberry sauce - very much a version as I had neither red wine nor red port open, and I didn't want to open to bottles for 50 ml of each on a Sunday night. So I improvised - to make 100ml of liquid for a half quantity of sauce I used the tail end of a bottle of red vermouth, made up to volume with the dregs of a bottle of cassis and a splash of white wine, left out the aromatics as the vermouth is so strong. Was delicious

[ianinfrance]

We nade colcannon the other day to go with some beef bourguignon and were so happy with it that we're making it again tonight. Although the recipe we "followed" was based on several online versions, it was sufficiently different for me to call it my own. So here it is.

Colcannon (Souvigne)

680 g potatoes (peeled, cooked, mashed)
250 g curly kale (shredded)
150 ml hot milk
220 g spring onons, weighed prepared
110 g butter

Peel the potatoes, cut into roughly 2cm cubes and weight when prepared. Tip into fairly strongly salted cold water and bring to the boil. Cook about 25 minutes until really tender, without falling apart. Tip into a colander, cover with a cloth and leave 2-5 minutes so that the cloth can absorb the excess steam.

Meanwhile, slice the spring onions fairly finely and tip them into a frying pan with a fairly generous amount of the butter Cook over a high heat, stirring from time to time till softened but not browned. Set aside to process with the kale.

Using a potato ricer, mash the potatoes carefully and add the remaining butter and the hot milk, beat for a few moments till really smooth and fluffy.

Strip the leaves of kale away from the stems and shred them roughly. Cook as you would for any green vegetable in furiously boiling salted water for about 10 minutes until it is beginning to be tender. Strain it and refresh it with cold water. Drain it thoroughly and squeeze out any excess water

Put the kale with the parcooked spring onions into a food processor and pulse about10 times till fairly finely chopped - but not a mush.

Add the kale and spring onions together with any butter remaining in the frying pan and mix into the mashed potatoes.

Set aside until needed, when the colcannon can be reheated in the microwave.

Servings: 4

Author: Ian & Jacquie Hoare following various recipes online and elsewhere.

[suffolk]

Mmm - roast mallard and colcannon - two of my favourites

[StokeySue]

Mmm - roast mallard and colcannon - two of my favourites

I have of course got half a mallard left for tonight (with half the sauce) - and funnily enough I've just decided on colcannon to go with it; I've got some lovely red kale

[suffolk]

[ianinfrance]

funnily enough I've just decided on colcannon to go with it; I've got some lovely red kale

Hope you enjoyed it!

We've got a correspondent/friend over from the States arriving tomorrow, and so we'll be feasting again (my poor diet).

We made the Thai-ish stir fried Beef and mixed pepper for our slimming supper. Delicious. That's another one to be repeated.

[anneskitchen]

Being offline lately I've managed to cook a few recipes that I had stashed!

Banana and oat bites - think from a Tesco magazine, literally apple sauce, mashed banana, oats and cinnamon rolled up and baked. They were nice, handy use of very ripe nana's. Nto amazing but edible!

Courgette and mozzarella piadina's - from a recent Waitrose mag, basically a frying pan bread, split and filled like a pitta with grilled courgettes, mozzarella and chillies (plus a bit of lemon zest, basil and red wine vinegar) overall a success but didn't quite understand the whole grill the courgettes then add the vinegar and other bits, our grill got in a right mess, guessing not to add foil to the rack next time?! very filling though and quite tasty overall!

And slumming it a bit but recently on facebook we kept seeing images of hotdogs speared with spaghetti, then cooked. I added pesto at the end, and it was quite tasty, though surprisingly time consuming spearing hotdogs!!

Last but not least was another Waitrose recipe, for Vegetable hash with chorizo and poached egg - I helped B make it (as I was going out!) and it was easy to make and lovely - fried leeks, chorizo and par-boiled sweet potato chunks thrown in, then topped with a poached egg. B said it was very tasty and a keeper!

[ianinfrance]

It's time to make my confession. In more than 70 years, I've never made a paella. I have had a few, always containing seafood, usually with dessicated mussels and tough overcooked shell-on prawns. While these last ingredients weren't so awful I never wanted to eat one, I didn't want to peprtrate the same mistakes, so gave the genre a miss.

However, during our recent trop to Catalunya, I tasted a couple and suddenly realised how much I'd been missing. So, after doing some grovelling arond on the Web, I found a Spanish language recipe based on the (non fishy) Paella Valenciana. So I pushed it through Google translate, tarted up the English a bit, changed the quantities so it was enough for two (gluttons) and made a couple of ingredient changes too. It's mine, I tell you, all mine! Anyway, apart from being my recipe, it was really, really good and we're certainly going to make it again.

Ian's Paella nearly Valenciana for two - cooked in a frying pan.

P1010176 (Custom).jpg (57.7 KiB) Viewed 31039 times

Anyone want the recipe?

[EmWilk]

Aye, me please!

As I've said before, I never follow recipes but I do read them for inspiration, comparison and generally collating of ideas, so if you wouldn't mind. The non-fishy variety are my preferred type.

And well done on making your first, I'm glad it went well

[ianinfrance]

Right you are. I've been playing and I've uploaded it to the web. Do let me know if you find any problems.

Uncle Pepe's Homestyle Paella.

As for following or not, given my departures from the original, I'm in no position to criticize! All I'd say is that in my readings, there seem to be four things that are important.
1. Fry the meat(s) to a good golden brown, (not pale at all). I did that by having the oil really hot, adding the meat and leaving it alone till it browned on one side before turning to the other side. Once both sides were well browned, I started stir frying, and only then add the meatballs.
2. Make sure the pan is the right size for the amount of food. Too large, the food will be too shallow and the liquid will evaporate too fast, so the rice won't cook properly. If too small, the liquid will be too deep and will take too long to disappear.
3 Don't stir once the rice is added. A paella is not a risotto.
4. Leave the paella to rest off the heat for a few minutes AFTER the liquid has nearly all been absorbed.

But then... what do I know?

[EmWilk]

Thanks Ian, it looks very nice indeed. I've never used meatballs in a paella.

Your tips are ones that I would follow in any case to make a paella but it's nice to confirm these things with others!

After seeing something on a Simon hopkinson programme, I now tend to finish a paella off with a take on the 'magic' dressing shown which was pretty much lots of parsley, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. It does make a difference but if i can't be bothered making it in the pestle and mortar, I'll just add lots of fresh chopped parsley, lemon juice and a bit of olive oil to the paella to get idea.

I always serve it with salad, crusty bread and a freshly made aioli. (Or alioli, i suppose I should say, with paella being a spanish dish )

I bought a bargain paella pan at Lidl (6.99) and it's served me very well thus far. Could just do with a bigger burner on the hob

[StokeySue]

On Saturday I cooked Fuchsia Dunlop's beef with cumin

Excellent, recommended, but the point I wanted to make was that it requires beef steak, and she does discuss the use of braising (chuck) or grilling/frying steak

Anyway the point is I used flatiron steak, which was perfect and required no trimming, just slicing up, and at £9.99 per kg actually works out quite well when used in Chinese style cooking where the portions aren't huge

[ianinfrance]

freshly made aioli. (Or alioli, i suppose I should say, with paella being a spanish dish

That was another revelation for us. I've often made/eaten aïoli, but until this trip, had never tried alioli. I had expected them to be almost the same, but that was far from the case with the ones I tried in Tossa. They were made with milk instead of egg yolk and with more subtle quantities of garlic. I'm certainly going to try to make one soon here, as it makes the most marvellous accompaniment to bunyols de bacalau.

Interesting use of a sort of gremolata/aillade/persillade.

[StokeySue]

That's interesting, I sometimes buy a ready made Spanish allioli, and it is near enough identical to aioli as is the only recipe I have in a book of tapas

It is very good and at only £1 a tub can be handy; the version with added chilli (La Brava) is particularity nice

http://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Chovi-Allioli-Creamy-Garlic-Dip/211659011?from=shop&tags=|105651|104268|105383|108647&parentContainer=|104268|105383|108647_SHELFVIEW

[scullion]

I now tend to finish a paella off with a take on the 'magic' dressing shown which was pretty much lots of parsley, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil.

i only ever put lemon wedges with paella. it is amazing how much the flavour is enhanced by such a simple touch.

I bought a bargain paella pan at Lidl (6.99

i have 3 paella pans of differing sizes, the biggest, 75p from the car boot sale in hayle, was, i imagine, a bulk buy by someone who brought a whole load, in differing sizes, back from spain hoping for a killing - bargain. the middle sized one came from an ironmonger in salamanca, €3, and the smallest from aldi in camborne in a set with rice etc for something like £5.99 or £6.99.

[ianinfrance]

That's interesting, I sometimes buy a ready made Spanish allioli, and it is near enough identical to aioli as is the only recipe I have in a book of tapas

Well, to be honest after reading comments here and elsewhere, I was very surprised. Perhaps it's a catalan variant.

[EmWilk]

I didn't know there was a significant difference between the 2 either - you learn something new every day! I had read up a while ago on this and the milk thing is ringing a bell, but most articles I read put them as very similar. Maybe you're right with it being a catalan variant.

i only ever put lemon wedges with paella. it is amazing how much the flavour is enhanced by such a simple touch.

This is my number 1 cooking tip to new/learning/inexperienced cooks. In pretty much all savoury dishes, i think a squeeze of lemon works wonders - makes everything more rounded and savoury somehow.

Oh dear, looks like my paella pan wasn't such a bargain after all! Hopefully I'll get a good 7 quids worth of use out of it though


Also, has anyone managed to perfect the 'crust' on a paella? I have got it pretty good a couple of times but not all the way across to the middle - tends to just be around the edges.

[scullion]

the best ones i get are when i finish off the cooking on the stove in the living room where it gets a more uniform heat across the pan (we have a morso squirrel).
what if you try using a heat difuser with your gas hob?

[ianinfrance]

I sometimes buy a ready made Spanish allioli, and it is near enough identical to aioli as is the only recipe I have in a book of tapas

After furthr reading, I think it's fair to say that most recipes DO use an egg. However, this one (found here) has several vaiants, with and without egg, with apples (! yes) and with almonds.

Here's the eggless one.

Eggless alioli

The amount of garlic you use depends on whether you like the aioli to be more or less strong, if you like it really garlicky, add a few more cloves Not using egg in this recipe ensures that the alioli sauce never splits. Just beat until all ingredients are fully integrated. Taste before serving and if necessary consider adding a little more salt. You can now serve it to eat or store in the fridge for later.

Eggless Alioli

2 glasses Virgin olive oil
1 glass whole milk
Three cloves garlic
Salt
Chopped parsley

We recommend that before starting you take yop quality milk out of the fridge, to promote mixing with the other ingredients at room temperature.

One by one, add all the ingredients to the bowl of the mixer, starting with the peeled and halved garlic cloves and then adding the olive oil, milk at room temperature, a pinch of salt and parsley finely chopped.

Now grind all the ingredients in the blender.. If you see that the sauce is too runny, add more olive oil. If becoming too thick, add a little more milk.

Yield: 3 glasses

This is one with egg

Alioli with egg

To make this wonderful aioli sauce at home just like the professional chefs do, we will need an electric mixer, whichever you have at home. Besides a good fitting vessel to use the blender, usually to buy the blender often accompany this type of accessories.

1 large egg
1 clove garlic
Vinegar, a splash
Olive oil
Salt

T prepare the sauce, peel the garlic, quarter it and add it to the bowl of the mixer. Add the egg to the cup also, with a splash of olive oil and wine vinegar as well. Finally take a pinch of salt, without stirring, and put the stick of the blender to the bottom of the glass without turning on.

Once you have the mixer at the bottom of the glass, starts beating at low speed to beat all the ingredients together. When you see the ingredients being mixed well, start moving the blender up and down gently to encourage the sauce to form. It is very important not to make sudden movements to avoid splitting the alioli.

In minutes observe how the alioli has finished doing, it should not be too thick a sauce with the slightly garlicky flavour characteristic of alioli. Store in the refrigerator to keep it before serving.

Servings: 6

Quite different!! But I have seen milk used in eggy ones too.

[StokeySue]

One by one, add all the ingredients to the bowl of the mixer, starting with the peeled and halved garlic cloves and then adding the olive oil, milk at room temperature, a pinch of salt and parsley finely chopped.

Now grind all the ingredients in the blender.. If you see that the sauce is too runny, add more olive oil. If becoming too thick, add a little more milk.

Interesting - is "mixer" here used in the French sense of food processor? I guess so

Might try it sometime, one of the advantages over using egg is you can make any amount you like, just use a smaller (or bigger) glass

[ianinfrance]

Interesting - is "mixer" here used in the French sense of food processor? I guess so

Either that or a stick blender. There's considerable confusion between English and French over these words and I imagine that it carries over into Spanish as well. When I try this I'll use my liquidiser goblet which will allow me to add the oil as I go.

[StokeySue]

I acquired a Bamix stick - which makes instant mayo and Hollandaise , so I'd use that

[ianinfrance]

I've got a similar one (don't remember the make comes with various attachments). That would also work well as you suggest.

[MariaKK]

Alioli

The ingredients

The name says it all - in Catalan all-i-oli (alioli) in Castillian speaking regions it is often referred to as ajoaceite – just garlic and oil. But, if using the traditional pestle and mortar it can be tricky to get a proper emulsion as the garlic cloves can dry out during the initial mashing stage, so people started adding egg yolk, a piece of bread (crumb only, with a dribble of water) or a bit of boiled potato.

If using pestle and mortar most people insist the oil should be poured onto the pestle and never straight into the mortar.

Here’s a photo
http://www.directoalpaladar.com/curso-d ... i-o-alioli


Electric mixer, blender, … and other Google obfuscations

When I moved to Madrid (1974) batidoras / liquadoras , (i.e. blenders with the knives at the bottom of the glass jug) were rare, but just about every Spanish ama de casa had a minipimer or stick blender - nowadays often also referred to as a batidora.

Ian,
in the recipes you give I’d say it’s definitely a stick blender with its tall, narrow beaker. Put the ingredients in the beaker in the order given. Insert stick blender and holding the beaker down very firmly start whizzing – keeping the blender at the bottom. As the ingredients start to come together very gradually lift the stick up and then down again a few times until it’s all amalgamated. Does that make sense?

If you feel you need to add extra oil a third hand is very useful - either to dribble in the oil or hold the beaker down as it’ll want to fly off the worktop.

Milk

I can’t vouch for the whole of southern Spain or the Levant, but certainly in Atlantic Andalusia in the summer mahonesa /mayonesa blanca (white mayo) tended to replace the normal egg-based mayo in most bars and restaurants. Cold cabinets were not as prolific or reliable as they are now, so it made sense not to keep an eggy mix sitting out on the counter.

I suspect- though have no proof – the milk alioli developed from the mayo, especially once people used blenders and egg yolks rather than the traditional pestle and mortar to make the alioli , creating a very different, more subtle sauce / dip in the process.


Ian,
If you’d like translations do let me know – a PM or e-mail might be more practical.

The paella looks very good, but meatballs? … meatballs !!! I almost had to get the smelling salts out (Grin)

ATB

Marja

[ianinfrance]

Hi Marja,

Thanks so much for all your comments. I'm a little bit pushed so I'm not going to reply point by point, though I've absorbed them! As for the meatballs..... Have a look I back substituted the rabbit for the pork, and would have subbed snails if I'd had 'em in a tin. As far as the translation is concerned, as you know, I don't speak Spanish, let alone Catalan, but "Google Translate" gives me a good start which I can then turn into more or less comprehensible English. If there are words which really defeat Google seriously, then with a fair knowledge of Latin I can nearly always make a stab. I'll remember that you can be relied upon if ever I'm truly stuck.

[patpoyntz]

We had a marvellous holiday in Northern India earlier this year, and have been making a lot of Indian food since then, mostly Mamta and Madhur. However, mysteriously, a copy of 'Made in India' by Meera Sodha, found its way into my supermarket trolley recently. So from it, I made pistachio and yoghurt chicken, aubergine and cherry tomato curry, Gujerati potato curry, and naan breads. It was all really delicious and if can highly recommend the book.

[Catherine]

We have a friend who has an apartment in Spain and my mum was taught to make paella by the next door neighbour. Needless to say paella is one of my mums legendary dishes. Expensive to make but so worth it

[icelesley]

I made this up at the weekend. I had bought a medium sized lovely ripe juicey mango at the weekend I cubed it , put into a small dish and topped with some raspberries, a couple of tablespoons of quantraux (?sp) a sprinkle of flaked almonds and topped with a crumble and baked. We had it for dessert on Saturday evening with fresh double cream it was and so simple

[Mamta]

patpoyntz, you get hooked on spicy food, so watch out!

[patpoyntz]

patpoyntz, you get hooked on spicy food, so watch out!

Ah, too late I'm afraid Mamta....but what a lovely thing to get hooked on!

One of the nicest meals I had was in Shimla one lunch time, it was Malai Kofta. I haven't tried to make it yet, but I will.
And in Delhi, Lamb Raan, absolutely divine. And I couldn't forget the Masala Dosa, which I had almost every breakfast.